


Moving on

by imboredsohereiam



Category: 13 Reasons Why (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:02:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25690267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imboredsohereiam/pseuds/imboredsohereiam
Summary: In the middle of the mess Tony is in, Officer Ted shows up. Not trusting him in the beginning, Ted slowly changes into a Person Tony can confide in.
Relationships: Tony Padilla/Ted Wynn
Comments: 8
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm nearly finished writing this fanfic, but i just don't know how to end it, so i decided to post it in multiple chapters until i figure out how the ending should be.  
> Also please can someone write a fanfic about them two? <3

Things with Caleb are fine. Or as fine as they can be for a fucked-up mess Tony is. He sometimes wonders if they can ever be more than fine, if they might even be happy after all the stuff that had happened, and Tony can’t answer his thoughts. They’ve been pressured into a reality, where there’s no place for fantasizing about a better life.  
Yes, Tony loves Caleb. Caleb had been there when everything went to shit. Caleb managed that Tony somehow let go of some of his anger. But they’re not living in utopia anymore, and is it really love if they can’t dream of more?  
There’s this whole mess with his family going on, and Tony feels how is body is filled with tension, and he worries about Tyler, because he and Alex and Tyler had become somewhat of a team. Tyler was his friend, but he seemed to not trust him, to lie to him, and Tony had to find out why. And when this new officer started to search his bag, simply because his name was Padilla and isn’t pronounced the American way, he wanted to beat that officer up. He wanted to beat the shit out of him, until the officer wouldn’t be able to move, and Tony’s knuckles would be so bruised, that he wouldn’t be able to use his hands anymore, but he would still continue hitting, until Tony’s mind would finally shut up.  
And whilst Tony might be going crazy, he isn’t stupid, so he holds back, presses his teeth together, tries to stay calm.

When Tyler leaves the classroom, Tony feels like it’s his duty to follow him. Once being part of this mess, you can’t really stop, so it almost comes naturally to go after Tyler. Tyler doesn’t go to the bathroom, therefore Tony doesn’t either, and the same officer that searched his bag, catches him. Tony feels once again how the anger in his body gets bigger and bigger, but it seems like for once the world pities him. The officer lets him go, even invites him to a fight, and even though Tony doesn’t trust him, he has to at least act like he trusts him a bit, so he agrees to it. He doesn’t trust this cop that just showed up out of nowhere and seemed to have his eyes on Tony, but he got an advantage, Tony knows that Ted is a cop, and the officer only knows that he is friends with Clay, who had gotten arrested for some time for the murder of Bryce, but he doesn’t know about Tony’s involvement with this whole mess. He doesn’t know. Yet.

When the first boxing fight starts, Officer Ted asks him about Caleb. Tony tells him that he’s his trainer, but he feels like the question isn’t answered. It sounded like the officer didn’t really asked about Caleb’s involvement when it came to the sport, but also his involvement with this whole mess. Tony feels unsure.  
During the match Tony can’t think straight. His body is bruised, adrenaline rushes through his body. He hears screams of encouragement, of Tyler, Caleb and Officer Ted. When he wins, Officer Ted looks legit happy, and Tony feels his suspicion crumble, but he’ll still be on his guard.

After that fight, things change. The change isn’t really noticeable in one’s eyes, but it’s a different atmosphere. Officer Ted still watches him in school, but he doesn’t get his backpack searched anymore, simply because he’s Padilla. Still, all the Mexicans and Dominicans still get their bags searched.

He gets picked up at the garage by Officer Ted before his next fight. He doesn’t know why, because the cops surely know that he has a car, because he had gotten some parking tickets a few months prior, but Tony surely won’t ask about it.  
This time, he doesn’t just want to win a fight to prove the cops what he’s worth. He wants to prove something himself; he wants to prove something to Caleb; he wants to prove Officer Ted that he’s fine.  
He wins.  
And he gets offered a scholarship at a college. Tony is sure he won’t take it, but he still wonders who had called the college, and he knows that it couldn’t have been Caleb, because he sure hasn’t got such contacts.  
He might be a prick about it, but he feels thankful for it. He feels somewhat save, like he got someone who looks after him. He doesn’t actively think about it, but somehow he just knows who had called the college.

At the riot, Tony can’t help himself but to get involved, and when a cop catches him, he wants to curse. But there is his guardian once again, and helps him get free. Officer Ted tells him about the college, encourages him to take it, and he lets him go. Tony saw the concerned look in Ted’s eyes, and he finds himself asking, why Ted would do all this for him.

After the Prom, things get worse. Justin is dying, and Clay is a freaking mess and Tony can’t help him. There’s the thing about Winston, he’s scared to be caught off guard and he needs to find a way to get rid of this feeling.  
So, he gets caught up in a street fight. He somewhat enjoys it, it feels so different from the boxing matches he used to fight at, because here he doesn’t know if he will survive. And as fucked up as it may sound, he had missed said feeling.  
When things get out of control, Tony thinks about his family. It feels right to just let go. But then all of the sudden Officer Ted is there, and Tony starts breathing again. And he’s angry because he had been ready to die and Ted had ruined his fucking chance to do so, and he starts fighting against Ted who just holds him, even though Tony hurts him. And Tony screams and said that he never asked him to care for him, and Ted is still quiet and just holds him and Tony starts crying.  
After Tony had calmed down, Ted takes him with his car to the police station. The gang he fought with had fled the moment they had seen a cop show up.  
Tony doesn’t know why Officer Ted had a first aid kit in his car, but he wouldn’t dare to complain. Ted carefully starts to take care of his wounds, when they hear screams and see people running out of the police station. They both get out of the car as fast as they can. For a moment it seems like Officer Ted wants to hold him back, wants him to stay in the car, but it’s like he knew that Tony would never obey, so instead he takes his hand and pulls him to the station. As a security measure of course.  
Inside the station Tony feels like he can’t breathe again. He was thrown to the ground by Ted, and now he sees Clay losing his mind, without him being able to help him. When Tony realises that he didn’t even carry a gun with him, he feels like drowning. Clay had been way more lost than he ever dared to think.  
When he finally gets to talk to Clay, they promise each other to look after each other more.

Officer Ted drives him home. He didn’t fill out a formula about his fight, and Tony isn’t sure if it’s because it would be his third strike, or because of what happened with Clay, or because of Tony’s breakdown. He knows that Officer Ted wouldn’t have forgotten about it, and that it was intentional.  
This time the car drive isn’t filled with silence. Tony hears Ted talk, calmly, or maybe his voice just seems so calm and so far away because he’s fighting against falling asleep.  
Ted talks about how he always felt this anger when he was a teenager. He doesn’t say why he felt this anger.  
When Officer Ted finally drops him off, Tony isn’t sure what to say. So, he simply murmurs a “thank you” and walks with his head down to the door. Caleb stands in front of it, his eyes filled with worry. And Tony is at loss of words and doesn’t know how to describe the situation, nor his feelings, so he just lets Caleb take him into his arms and kiss him. Then Caleb brings him inside, and Tony sinks onto the couch. He sees how Caleb leaves the house again to talk to the Officer, who had waited in the car all this time. And then he falls asleep, his whole body feeling so exhausted, that he’s not even able to fight against his eyes closing. In his sleep he hears a car drive away.

Tony decides to go to the college. He needed to get his shit back together. Talking to his father had given him the energy to finally take a step into the right direction.  
At the graduation he feels unsure, doesn’t know if it’s a calm before the storm, or if it really all is over. But then Alex talks to Winston, and it really seems like an end.  
His sister had shown up at the graduation, and them spending time together, and Caleb cooking for them, it nearly had felt like a family. But she had to leave the next day.

He visits with Clay his future college, and he even gets some sort of excitement flowing through his body. Caleb assures him that he’s only 8 hours away, or really just 7. He can’t accompany him though, and Clay’s already long gone, but Ted shows up at his door, and offers to drive him across the county. Of course, Tony doesn’t grant him to drive his car, but he lets him enjoy the journey on the passenger seat.  
When they arrive at the college, Ted helps him bring the boxes to his dorm. Its already late so Tony is unsure what Ted is going to do, but he assures him he’s got a place to stay, and that he has to do something for work anyway. Therefore, it was already time to say goodbye. Tony is unsure how to actually say goodbye, if a hug is appropriate or not. He has known Officer Ted for quite a while now, but he’s still an officer, and simply because they drove out here, didn’t make them friends. But Officer Ted also isn’t an old man, with whom he’d shake hands with. Ted is only a few years older, and he knows him better than most his friends.  
But Ted makes the decision for him. He pulls him in a half hug, pats his shoulder and whispers:  
“Take care of yourself, okay kiddo?” He then steps away, turns around one more time and this time he doesn’t whisper but says with a steady voice. “Goodbye.”  
Tony watches him walk along the pavement, and he suddenly realises he has no idea how Ted will get back. But then he remembers that he had said that he got work to do, so he’ll probably already thought about how to get home.


	2. Chapter 2

The first week Tony feels uneasy. He’s never been a big learner, and he’s also not sure if he really chose the right thing to study. But the sport helps get rid of the tension.  
After a few weeks, Caleb drives out to see him. They spend the evening walking along the streets, and they talk. They both think they are deserving of a restart. The right thing for them to do, is break it off. It’s not easy, but they have the same feeling about it, and to finally leave the past behind, it’s the best thing for Tony. He knows that they’ll stay friends forever, and that they’ll probably still will be spending evenings cooking when he’ll see his sister again.  
After that, Tony feels free. His not sure if he’ll ever return to Evergreen, because of all the shit that had happened there. But next to feeling free, he’s also fucking lonely. He studies all night, but he still isn’t sure it’s the right thing to do. Now that he finally has a chance of having a future, he’s feeling scared. Sometimes he writes Clay, and it’s weird to not see him every day, but at the same time it helps their friendship. They don’t talk every day, because Clay also needs a break from all the stuff that had happened. He also sometimes messages Caleb, their gone feelings not affecting the friendship they used to have. One day he even receives a message from Officer Ted, asking him how things are going.   
He never had given Ted his number, but he really shouldn’t be surprised, Ted was a cop after all. He smiles when he reads the message, but he still doesn’t know what this sort of friendship or not friendship is supposed to be, so he’s unsure with what he should answer. In the end he writes:  
“Had to get myself used to the schedule, but it’s getting better.” Nothing about how he misses to feel like he’s being guarded. 

It’s been three months since he started with college, and he had gotten both Tyler and Alex asking him if he’d like to meet up with them. A few weeks prior, he had already told Clay that he had too much going on for being able to meet him. He now answers Tyler and Alex with the same excuse.  
The next day is Friday night, and Tony knows that he should be heading out, should be hitting the bars, but he doesn’t feel up to it, so he just stays at his dorm. He doesn’t expect someone knocking at his door. When he opens it, he doesn’t know what to say. In front of it stands Ted, wearing black clothes, with a smile and a car key in his hand.   
“Wanna go for a ride?” And Tony once again finds himself at loss with words. He takes the two steps that are between them and hugs Ted. He hears Ted chuckle, and for a short moment he feels embarrassed, but then he’s distracted by the scent of the clothes his head is wrapped up in. It smells the same as the day Ted had hugged him after having found him during the street fight. And suddenly Tony misses Ted so much, even though he’s right in front of him.  
Ted pats him and Tony makes sure to take a step back, but then he looks at Ted and sees this big smile on his face, and he immediately calms down.

They take a ride in Ted’s new car, it’s a black car inspired by the Camaro 1987, and the car ride makes him feel free. Ted asks him what he thinks about his car, and whilst he praises the car, he can’t hold himself back to praise his old-timer more.  
Later they head to a restaurant, and Tony feels uncomfortable because he surely isn’t dressed appropriate, and it is like Ted can read his mind, because he asks him if he’d rather go to a café. And Tony doesn’t want to be ungrateful, and is scared of saying something wrong, but he doesn’t have to answer at all, because Ted could read it in his face.   
They’re heading to a café where they both eat a sandwich and a crêpe, and the officer drinks a beer whilst Tony simply has a coke, because after all Ted is still a cop, and Tony is still underage. He never really realised that he was that young, and now he feels embarrassed once again. He always was the oldest in his friends’ group, the one that took care of all the problems, and now he suddenly feels so young.   
But it’s like Ted can read his head once again, and offers him a beer too, and if it were another person, he wouldn’t have been okay with the offer, but Ted was different.  
Then Ted asks about school, and that’s the part of the conversation that Tony had dreaded. After talking around the bush, Tony finally admits:  
“I’m not sure if it’s the right place for me?”  
Ted answers calmly. “What makes you think that?”  
“Well, I don’t think I want to do sports forever.”   
Ted leans over the table, to look into his eyes. “You know that you might have gotten the scholarship because of your fighting abilities, but you aren’t here to study sports. You can study whatever you like.” And then after a pause: “What do you like?”  
And that’s what Tony isn’t sure about. He feels that it’s wrong to be here, not because he got the scholarship due to boxing, but because he feels like he took someone’s place, a place of someone who knows what he wants. “I don’t really know. I don’t think I’m cut for the justice system, like being a lawyer or something, but I do sometimes think that I’d like to help people.” There’s a but hanging in the air.  
“But?” Asks Ted whilst already knowing the answer.  
“But.” Replies Tony.  
“But you’re scared that you haven’t dealt with your stuff enough to be able to concentrate on others problems?” And Tony lets go of a deep breathe, because once again Ted understood what he meant.  
“Exactly.”   
The tension is broken and Tony can now talk openly about it. It’s near midnight when they finally head to Tony’s dorm.  
This time Tony asks Ted where he’s going to stay. Ted chuckles and says:  
“At some Motel.” And that’s when Tony realises that he hadn’t asked Ted why he even showed up, so he stops with his key in his hand, turns around and asks:  
“Why are you here?” He’s not sure if he caught Ted in surprise, because said guy lifts his eyebrow and seems to hesitate with answering. In the end he says:  
“I heard around. Seems like you left Clay hanging. And you didn’t want to meet Alex and Tyler. I simply heard about it because Clay and Tyler sometimes come to the station.  
So, I’ve decided to show up. To see how things are.”  
Tony doesn’t know how to answer. He only wrote Alex and Tyler yesterday, so Ted had to make the decision immediately after he heard about it and must have driven out here.   
Quietly he says: “Thank you.” He then lingers, not sure what to say, and there’s it again, Ted’s chuckle.  
They spend some time just standing there, until Tony finally gets himself to ask Ted:  
“Are you sure that you want to stay at some motel? You could stay over. My dorm-partner is out for the weekend.” After that its quiet again. Tony isn’t quite sure if he had crossed a line by asking this. The longer Ted just stood there, with this half smile, the more insecure Tony feels about his question. It probably was really inappropriate to ask. But just when he’s about to turn around, jangling the keys in his hands, he feels Ted’s hand on his shoulder and a raspy voice saying:  
“If you don’t mind kiddo, I’d like to very much.”  
They watch some thriller, both already thinking that they know who the murderer is the first minutes in, it turns out they were right. After that, they go take a shower, Tony being the first one to enter the bathroom. After he has finished, he comes out of it, to get dressed. He sees Ted clothes spread on the bed, ready for him to wear after his shower, and Tony can’t help himself but to reach out and smell them. It has the scent of washing powder and of Ted. He hears steps, and then he gets hugged from behind.   
“Ready kiddo?”  
They change the laundry on his dorm-partners bed. It’s a deal the both of them made in the beginning of the semester. When one of them is gone, they’re allowed to have a visitor sleeping on the free bed. Then they head to bed.  
Tony hears how Ted’s breath are becoming longer, but he can’t get himself to fall asleep. He sits up and casts a glance at the other bed. There lays Ted, already fast asleep. After some time, he can feel his eyelids get heavier, and he falls asleep to.

When he wakes up, he sees Ted across the room sitting on the bed, smiling at him.  
“Been up for long?” Tony asks with a sleepy voice.  
“Only a few minutes.” Ted answers, but Tony can see with a glance that Ted’s hair is already combed, and it makes him wonder how long Ted had been sitting there, watching him sleep.   
Whilst Tony makes himself ready, Ted goes to the nearest café to fetch them some coffee. Then they go for a run, and it turns out that Ted wants to stay a bit longer, to watch him boxing. Tony feels unsure, wanting to show him how much he’s learned since the last match, wants to make him proud, wants to make sure that calling the college hadn’t been wasted on him.   
He can feel Ted watching every move of his, and his skin starts to burn up. He can’t really concentrate, but somehow he manages to get through the instruction part and his trainer finally lets him fight. Ted offers himself as a fighting partner, and when they start boxing, it feels like Ted is able to anticipate every one of his moves, and he breaks out in sweats, until finally his trainer releases him and they head to the shower. Tony can’t hold himself back and sneaks a glance at Ted’s body while Ted is drying himself with a towel. He looks at his muscles, and while Tony sure has seen big muscles before, he’s a sportsman after all, it feels different looking at Ted’s body. He traces every little mark on his skin, until he looks up only to find Ted looking at him with a raised eyebrow, chuckling.

Tony spends the afternoon catching up on his studies, and Ted sits next to him, watching him highlight the words over his shoulders. Turns out that Ted actually was quite smart, or at least interested in this topic, because he started helping him and talk about the context during different times through history. Tony catches himself staring at Ted lips, he had never heard Ted talking a lot, and found himself fascinated by how Ted’s voice sounds somewhat excited. Ted’s breath tickles him, and a shiver goes through his body. He leans a bit back, until he feels Ted’s upper body leaning against his back, and for a short moment he closes his eyes and listens to Ted’s voice whilst feeling his body breathing against him. He feels Ted shifting, and he looks up, only to see Ted staring at the paper, with an unreadable facial expression. Ted then abruptly gets up and asks:  
“Wanna go for some coffee?”

Tony isn’t ashamed of who he is. If there’s someone he likes, he’ll be straight forward about it. And he knows perfectly well how to act to win someone over. But this isn’t the same. Tony doesn’t even think about liking Ted. He doesn’t dare to. Tony had of course hung with older men. Caleb was older than him too. But Ted was still being a cop, and it somewhat seemed like it was his duty to look out for him, like the sheriff had watched out for Clay. And whilst Tony doesn’t dare to name the things he’s feeling, he is aware of how things have changed. The feeling of mistrust that was present when he first interacted with Ted was gone, replaced by complete and deep understanding.

They don’t talk about Ted staying the night, because it’s been somewhat clear from the beginning that this was bound to happen. They had cooked some soup with the help from the kettle, and had then watched a movie. Later they went out for a jog again, raced each other through the parc, and Tony felt how all his thoughts had left his body. When they came back, Tony was refreshed enough to take up studying again, and Ted went to the cassette player, looked through his collection and put on some music. It nearly feels like home, how he can hear Ted humming to the music, and whenever he looks up, he can see Ted dancing with his eyes closed. As soon as Tony had caught himself thinking about it, he’s alarmed, but manages to pull himself together.  
They are getting ready for bed earlier then the past night, and this time Ted showers first. When Tony comes out of the bath, he sees Ted with only a pair of bottoms on, and again he can’t get himself to look away. This time there’s something earnest displaying in Ted’s face when he catches Tony watching him.


End file.
